


A love to be preserved

by Greenleafsdaughter



Category: Mary Russell - Laurie R. King
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:14:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenleafsdaughter/pseuds/Greenleafsdaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set before 'Justice Hall' starts, this story deals with a bit of background about Mahmoud and Ali Hazr from 'O Jerusalem' and why they have lived in Palestine for such a long time. Ali ponders about his fears on the journey back to England.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A love to be preserved

**Author's Note:**

  * For [k8 (paintedmaypole)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedmaypole/gifts).



> Dear K8 / Paintedmaypole,
> 
> I hope you will like this little ficlet. I was really happy about getting this assigment (all the more so since it's my first time participating in Yuletide) and I only regret I didn't have the time I wanted to make it longer and more refined. I probably will continue working on it and then let you know via lj where to find the longer version. Ali and Mahmoud are intriguing characters in my opinion too and I happily dreamed this up for them. Sorry for any inaccuracy reg. timeline and their familys' reactions. The books and I are separated by the Channel at the moment and I can't check nor remember all of it and some tiny bits I twisted a bit. And now: have fun with reading! Have a Happy Christmas and a good start into the New Year!

Ali Hazr was in deep and utter despair. Ever since they had gotten news from England that Mahmoud's older brother Henry was dying and Mahmoud was expected to take on the title, his cousin had adopted such an expression of melancholy and sadness as if he felt the whole weight of the world closing in on him. Ever since they had boarded the ship which was taking them back to England Mahmoud had become more serious and withdrawn than he ever had been. Not even a little occasional smile showed on the older man’s face any more.

Ali felt as if his cousin's spirit was slipping further and further away into some dark and remote place into which he could not follow. Never before had Ali Hazr been this frightened as he knew now what he had to lose: Mahmoud's never-ending love. This pillar of their little world in the Palestinian desert had been shaken to the core. It was the cruelness of the situation that scared Ali as well as the impact of possible consequences of anything he would decide on. So far Mahmoud as the older, more mature one had made all the important decisions and Ali had happily followed because he felt Mahmoud was right and he fully trusted him. But the situation had completely gotten out of control; Ali believed his lover now relied on him for help. He only hoped he would do right. He would die for Mahmoud if there would be no other way.

The younger man thought back to when his older cousin had almost died because of him. The memories still haunted both of them: Mahmoud was fingering the scar whenever something greatly troubled him; Ali had become overly protective of his cousin whenever he perceived a potential threat. Karim Bey had somehow found out about their secret; he used his power to take Mahmoud prisoner and his knowledge to blackmail him into submitting to torture and pain. There was no way Mahmoud would allow someone to hurt Ali. If something happened to his lover, his heart would stop beating for sure out of sorrow. When Bey started to get bored of his prisoner, his guard relaxed and Ali could slip in to rescue his cousin. His heart missed a beat or two at the sight which greeted him in the little room Mahmoud was held in. They stayed put for a long while with one of their closest friends while his body healed. His soul never healed completely; he did not show it all the time and he trusted Ali's abilities but he grew easily worried if something disrupted their peace. Their souls' union grew deeper and deeper during those weeks. It was being on unknown ground again which made Ali fear the worst.

Now they were forced to return to their home country Mahmoud or rather Marsh as his cousin had insisted on being called the moment the news reached them was only leaving his cabin for breakfast and diner and otherwise spent his days cloistered up in the small room which provided a temporary home during their journey. ‘His’ room. Ali had been furious when Marsh had informed them of their travel arrangements, specifically consisting in two separate rooms. It seemed that Marsh wanted to push him away for good after all they had shared and been through. He tried to convince Ali that getting used to being separated now would made it easier for them to act the part of 'cousins only' in England. He did not tell Ali that he feared for his cousin's safety like he had done before. In addition, not a word was exchanged between them at mealtimes. Or at least Marsh did not reply when Ali tried to talk to him. He gave up after some days and they ate their meals in total silence.

During the days on board Ali had taken to walking up and down on deck, sometimes muttering to himself, sometimes in total silence. He was so deep in his thoughts that he often did not notice the other passengers around him and they left him in peace, having grown used to see this gentleman wandering around on his own during the day while being accompanied to meals in the restaurant by a more elusive older gentleman.

Shortly before retiring to his own cabin after such a walk, he paused in front of Marsh’s room. Ali thought back to the very first moment when he felt a similar growing unease and fear. It was during his teenager years when his cousin had just finished university and went away on the Grand Tour, which was a normal thing to do for the son of a peer of the realm. And yet Ali had a feeling that it was not only the idea of social upper-class norms and morals which had pushed Marsh into going away. All the more since the young man had only returned after a hasty telegram had been sent calling him back to Justice Hall since his parents had ... 'some plans' for him. Ali could not help snearing at the thought in retrospection. Shortly after Marsh's return his father had been taken ill and died.

Marsh had appeared in grief like all the rest of his family and yet Ali could see there must have been more to his cousin’s apparent turmoil of emotions than just sadness about his father’s passing. He especially noticed since Marsh tended to shy away from him in particular. Every member of the Hughenfort family of Justice Hall seemed to be a bit shy of the usual hustle and bustle when the larger family came together but the reason was known to all and there was nothing to demand they break out of this grief-induced stupor. Most of them spent their days inside the grand house whereas Marsh went outside whenever the circumstances permitted. Ali had tried to follow him once or twice, to just spend time with his cousin, but the brusque refusal by Marsh to go anywhere further at all unless Ali stop following him made the younger man resist this urge. Marsh also took to have his meals sent up to his room, thereby simply avoiding any contact with other family members when he was bound by custom to be at least friendly towards them.

Ali was about to enter university the next winter and he prepared meticulous for it as his own parents demanded and began to spend less and less time at Justice Hall. Marsh never came to Badger Old Place to visit his cousin, to see how he was doing.

Then suddenly, he married his friend from childhood days: Iris Sutherland. Ali was in turmoil now. He did not know what to make out of this. Ali did not grudge those two marriage if they really wanted it but they both seemed to be uneasy and he cared for both. But he did not have time to grow used to this new development in his cousin’s life: both Marsh and Iris as well as Marsh’s older brother Henry and his wife Sarah went abroad. Henry and Sarah came back to England, a much-loved and long-wished for baby boy in tow, Iris had gone on to Paris and Marsh…

Marsh had vanished. Completely and utterly vanished. He could have been dead for all Ali knew at first. Finally he received a letter from Iris, informing him about his cousin’s whereabouts. Ali could have embraced the whole world: he was so very happy and relieved that Marsh was alive, that he was well and now tried to build up a new life in Palestine. Ali was in total bliss.

His studies had taken a bit of a blow while he was worrying about Marsh but now that he was reassured of his cousin’s continuing presence on earth, he threw himself more eager than ever into learning so that his parents might allow him to join the older man for a while. At that moment in time he did not assume yet that ‘a while’ would turn into ‘almost 25 years’.

He had replied to Iris’ letter, telling her of his gratitude and thankfulness that Marsh was still alive and that he just wondered why his cousin had vanished so quickly after he and Iris had gone abroad but no answer came back. Not from Iris. Instead a letter by Marsh himself reached him one day at his lodgings in Cambridge, begging his forgiveness and urging him not to slack in his education so that he, Ali, could join his cousin immediately once the very last of his terms at university had come to a close.

Ali did as he was bid, though he couldn’t help smiling almost all the time. In fact, he smiled so much that one of his fellow students made a comment about Ali surely being in love, so stupefied did he look sometimes with that radiant smile on his face. Ali seemed to be so drunk with joy that he simply said: ‘Yes, I am in love.’

The other students now pressed him for more details but Ali suddenly felt like he had been dunked in an ice-cold lake. Why had he said that he was in love? There was no female in his life, never had been. But why then did he have butterflies in his stomachs and nothing in his head, which could be the only explanation for his completely nonsensically utterance? The vicar always preached that the love between men was forbidden, was sodomy and would be punished with eternal hellfire. So why did he feel this way? Was he really in love with his cousin?

Ali grew more withdrawn after those thoughts had crossed his mind but he still persisted in pursuing his studies as Marsh had told him to. He wanted to join his cousin in Palestine after all. So did this mean he was in love with him? He kept pondering about this for a long while and then pushed the thoughts to one side, unanswered and unsolved.

This question however was to be answered one day but not by Ali. Another letter arrived in Cambridge after Ali’s graduation, bearing a foreign stamp. Mahmoud, as Marsh called himself now, had written again to his cousin, urging him to come to Palestine. Ali was more than happy to oblige: he joined the older man in the Holy Land and together they formed a band of brothers, Bedouin Arabs by day, lovers by night.

Mahmoud had finally revealed what had been on his mind for a long time: he was completely and utterly in love with Ali. He could not muster up the courage though to tell his cousin about his feelings as soon as he was sure of them himself. That was why he had shied away from Ali around the time of his father’s death and funeral and why he had prolonged the end of his Grand Tour for such a long time. Mahmoud had been afraid of the force of his emotions and of what a sudden outburst of desire and lust for Ali would set into motion.

Under no circumstances did he want to lose his cousin as a close and dear confident and there was no way that a declaration of his love under the eyes of his family would have gone unnoticed. Mahmoud did not want to hurt his cousin. Not at all. So he waited all those years until he could confess to Ali and to Ali alone.

He did it during their first night together in their tent after he had cooked some Arab-style diner and Ali had settled down on one of their cushions with a content sigh. ‘Do you know why I wanted you to come to Palestine?’ When Ali didn’t reply and only looked at him, expectation written all over his face, Mahmoud continued. ‘I wanted you to come to Palestine, come to me because here we can do this (he grasped Ali’s left hand and held it tight in his own) and nobody will think anything of it.’ He sat there for a moment, letting his eyes make contact with Ali’s, looking deep into the younger man’s soul. With a slight shake of his head he moved a bit closer to where his cousin had made himself comfortable. ‘As we can do this during the day without anybody the wiser, we can do this at night and nobody will ever discover our little secret.’

With these words he leaned over and, having brought his face close to that of Ali, kissed him on his lips. Ali was dumbstruck for a moment and then kissed back. All those bottled up emotions broke through the wall both men had erected around their innermost desire during long years of loneliness and longing. They spent the night in unison.

When they finally parted, still panting and yet in bliss, they made a vow never to leave the other, never do anything intentionally which would hurt the other, never let anybody do something which would hurt one of them. Would there have been a way of making their union official, they would have done it. They talked about Iris and Marsh’s marriage, about Iris's love for Dan (Ali had to grin at the thought; he had been surprised about the two women feeling and doing in Paris what he and Marsh felt and did in Palestine), about young Gabriel, to all appearances Henry and Sarah’s son and heir, about what he and Marsh would do in Palestine and about everything they could never have talked about in England under the stern auspices of their families. And then came the beginning of the end: Henry was dying.

Ali was brought to the present again when his thoughts had turned to Marsh’s elder brother and what his death meant for Marsh. He silently renewed the vow they had made that night, his hands braced against the door as if he wanted to share his strength with the older man inside, and silently added ‘whatever I can do for you, my love, to see you happy and in Palestine again, I will do gladly’. As soon as they had arrived in England and Marsh settled down a bit, Ali would go to seek out Amir and Holmes and beg them for help.


End file.
